FCC Missing The Point On The Broadcast Flag

News You Could Do Without

from the you-said-what? dept

While I’ve already said that some folks may be focusing too much attention on the whole broadcast flag issue, that doesn’t mean people should let shoddy reporting and ridiculous comments on the subject go by. Reuters is running an article that is a bit scary on two fronts. First off, it contains a quote from the head of the FCC’s media bureau that suggests he has no idea what he’s talking about. When asked about the broadcast flag, he says: “It will simply prevent consumers from illegal piracy, from mass distribution over the Internet, which is the problem with the music file sharing.” Except, simply, it won’t do that at all. It’s only designed to make life more difficult for consumers doing perfectly legal things, but will do nothing to slow down file sharing. They also seem to think the big complaint from people is that this will require everyone to go out and buy new hardware, which is a stupid side effect, but hardly the main complaint from most people. The second (and perhaps) bigger problem with the article is that it seems to repeat all of this as if it’s fact, and gives no weight to the (increasingly vocal) folks who see all the problems the broadcast flag presents. Former FCC guy Kevin Werbach comments on the idiocy of what’s said in the article.